1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to communication systems and methods, and more particularly to the communication of messages to one or more devices in an environment in which the devices require that content sent to them be specialized (or transformed) in one or more ways.
2. Description of the Prior Art With
With the proliferation of different types of communication devices comes the need for communication systems that can adapt message content and format to the specific capabilities of a wide array of different end-user devices. This process of adapting a message to the special needs of a target device is known as “transcoding”. One system for transcoding is described in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/511,977, filed Feb. 24, 2000 (the “prior application,” incorporated herein by reference). As these end-user devices become more pervasive, the demand on network resources for transcoding of messages from the format submitted to the system to a format within the capabilities of the receiving device will become greater and greater. In many cases the receiving device may be one of many different types of devices within a broad class (e.g., PDA's) with each specific type having its own characteristics that differ more or less from those of the other devices within the class and from devices in other classes. Communication systems must be prepared to handle the transcoding of messages for an ever-growing number of different device types while avoiding transmission bottlenecks and limits on scalability.
The present invention improves upon the prior art by providing a hierarchical gateway transcoding technique, for use in systems such as those described in the prior application.